For generations, people have created keepsakes of important events and associations in their lives. Yearbooks, scrapbooks, programs and autograph books have been used to create memorabilia of these events or associations. Classmates sign yearbooks, especially at graduation ceremonies, adding special messages. Teammates sign programs at the end of the season. Sometimes a general-purpose autograph book or scrapbook is used at a time of a party or milestone event to record who is present or capture a celebrity autograph.
As yearbooks become electronic records on compact disks and programs are replaced by websites, the desire to collect messages and signatures of friends and special people, such as celebrities, remains. Many have transformed an article of clothing into a canvas for special messages and autographs from friends. Particularly popular choices are caps and tee shirts. Signing tee shirts, especially for an event such as the last day of school or graduation, has become especially popular. There is even a Facebook® page entitled, “i love signing t-shirts the last day of school!!”
Although creating a note or a drawing and signing an article of clothing is currently in vogue, many of the irritating problems that vexed old school yearbook autograph hounds continue with signing of tee shirts and other items of clothing. For example, one friend may sign with the wrong type of pen that smears or bleeds into another's message. Alternatively, they may use ink that washes out during the first laundering. An acquaintance may write something inappropriate that is embarrassing or obscene that cannot easily be removed or obliterated. Another friend may write in letters too large, taking up too much space and crowding out others. Close friends or special teachers may be absent on the day of signing. These circumstances spoil the joy of the occasion, just as they did when people signed books.
In addition to creating wearable memorabilia for special occasions, customized garments can be created for hobbies and recreational interests. Fantasy sports are a popular pastime, wherein participants create dream teams to compete against other's dream teams. Fantasy sports began with baseball, a statistic laden endeavor. Fantasy sports leagues have expanded from baseball into every professional team sport, such as football, soccer, hockey, and rugby. In particular, fantasy football has a large level of participation with over 57 million competitors. The ubiquity of computing devices and access to the Internet has allowed this form of entertainment to explode. Participants form a league and enter their picks into a website that then gathers player statistics after each real game to almost instantly calculate scores in the fantasy league, allowing the participants to track standing in their league, make trades, adjust rosters, cut players and sign players within the pool of real players in their fantasy league.
Many have proposed systems for creating customized articles of clothing and merchandise using customized graphics. One has suggested a system to store an edited customized design so that user can repeatedly order customized products, without reentering the design for each order. These products generally are stationery and other printed matter. Another system allows the user to engage different vendors using the same design, depending on the vendor's capabilities and product line. Others have adopted a similar system where a user selects design elements from a limited number of graphical designs provided by the system and creates a layout that is stored so that user can repeatedly order customized products, without reentering the layout for each order. Other systems allow a user to select several custom designs and then notify others that the items are available for order. All of these systems only allow input on the design graphics and layout from one user who is either designing for only himself or herself or for a group who has no input in the design. All elements of the customized design for placement on merchandise are provided from within the system or by a single user.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present disclosure as disclosed hereafter.
In the present disclosure, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate the present disclosure, no technical aspects are disclaimed and it is contemplated that the claims may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.